“Eight already? Should have made them longer. I guess time flies when you’re begetting fun.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Never mind. So how are things getting along so far?”

“Well… honestly, things could be better…”

“Meaning?”

“Well you know that thing you asked the newbies not to do?”

“Aw, come on! Really? After that whole serious speech I gave? I’m on vacation for one day and everything goes to hell! I mean, I know they were technically born yesterday but… Man! Okay, okay. This is not that bad. I can fix this. Where are they?”

“No one knows. They ran off afterwards. Didn’t even stick around long enough to ask Luce why the tree was… whoops.”

“Gabe, tell me you didn’t let Luce go down there.”

“It wasn’t my fault! He said it’d be fun to mess with them when you were sleeping and he made it sound so hilarious and then all of a sudden he’s bringing snakes into it and talking about knowing everything and taking over your job and they were sewing leaves together and I have no clue where they even found string let alone the needle and I didn’t even think their loin cloths looked half bad in the first place—”

“GABE!”

“Umm… yeah, boss?”

“I appreciate your trust in my omniscience, but you’re going to need to string together at least one tangible sentence so I can understand what you’re talking about.”

“It’s over, boss. This whole crazy experiment is ruined. I told Luce not to talk to them, I told him they might freak out. Things just got out of hand so fast.”

“Everything’s alright, Gabe. Just take a deep breath and tell me exactly what happened.”

“It’s quite a story, actually. I don’t even know what part to start in.”